Koen's Group

Koen, 39, lives in a rural area in the Moung Russey district of Battambang province, Cambodia. She has three dependent children, all still in school. The family's main source of income comes from rice farming on five hectares of farmland. Koen has been in this business for ten years and she is able to earn about 25,000 KHR per day, saving approximately 18,000 KHR daily after offsetting expenses. The main challenge facing Koen's paddy field business is low crop yield resulting from drought.

Koen’s group consists of two members who live in the same village. Koen is in her first loan cycle with VisionFund as she leads her group in applying for loans of 1,000,000 KHR and 500,000 KHR. Koen will use her portion of the loan mainly to buy fertilizer and pesticides for her farmland and set aside a small amount to buy gasoline. Koen hopes to get a high crop yield from the rice paddy in order to better her living conditions.

Additional Information

About VisionFund Cambodia

VisionFund Cambodia is a Christian organization and microfinance institution that provides small loans and other financial services to improve the lives of children, empower poor women and their families, and grow successful businesses. The organization works primarily in rural parts of Cambodia and has distinguished itself by targeting the very poor who require smaller loan sizes, regardless of religious beliefs, gender or ethnic background.

Kiva lenders’ funds will help the organization to expand into the northeastern provinces of the country, which have historically been underserved and difficult to reach with financial services.

This is a Group Loan

In a group loan, each member of the group receives an individual loan but is part of a larger group of individuals. The group is there to provide support to the members and to provide a system of peer pressure, but groups may or may not be formally bound by a group guarantee. In cases where there is a group guarantee, members of the group are responsible for paying back the loans of their fellow group members in the case of delinquency or default.

Kiva's Field Partners typically feature one borrower from a group. The loan description, sector, and other attributes for a group loan profile are determined by the featured borrower's loan. The other members of the group are not required to use their loans for the same purpose.